I've been puzzling over this little tidbit in the 24 Feb 1877 edition of the Southern Standard, which has been published continuously in Clark County, AR since at least 1869.

Mr. John J Morrell will soon start a paper at Carlisle, Prairie county, Ark., having secured the press and material on which the "Prairie Flower" was formerly published. Don't do it, John, if you know whot is good for yourself.

That sounds ominous.I have more than passing interest in John J Morrell.

He was the nephew of Hannah J Morrell, who was my third great grandmother.

The Morrells had been in the newspaper business for many years before coming to Arkansas from Maine (by way of Tennessee) after the 1843 death of Hannah Morrell's husband, Henry Balding.

Hannah's youngest son, James Henry Balding, lived with her brother John Clement Morrell (and his son, John J, the subject of the warning) in Prairie County after Hannah died in 1856.

James Henry Balding helped his uncle get the paper out until he went off to war. John Clement Morrell's paper was the Des Arc Citizen, and John Morrell started publishing it as a weekly in 1854.

When James Henry Balding came back from the war (where he was a musician, of all things), he stayed in the newspaper business for a number of years afterward and was a member of the Arkansas Press Association until at least 1876.

It seems only natural that John J Morrell would follow in his daddy's footsteps and publish a newspaper. It sounds like news ink ran in the veins of the Morrell clan.

Seems like 26 year old John J Morrell was just following family tradition.

So what's up with the warning?I did a Google search for the Prairie Flower, and ran across this...